


Standard Operating Procedure: Being Taken Prisoner By Your Significant Other

by kellifer_fic



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Podfic Available, prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellifer_fic/pseuds/kellifer_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir, is your deep cover with the guys currently shooting at me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standard Operating Procedure: Being Taken Prisoner By Your Significant Other

**Author's Note:**

> Avengers xchange gift for the prompt:
> 
> Established relationship. Coulson has to go undercover as a HYDRA/villain and Clint manages to get caught and is brought in for interrogation.

Clint is pinned down, his new handler has flaked at the worst possible time and his new boots are pinching uncomfortably, just like Natasha told him they would. In short, he's having a pretty rough day so he's not expecting anything good when his secure line clicks on his earpiece.

"Ramirez, you'd better have a damn fine explanation for where you are right now if it's not here!" Clint barks, crouching lower behind the dumpster he's hunkered next to for cover. He got caught out in the open, pretty much flat footed.

He hates being on the ground and this is why.

"If you stick your head up one more time, I'm going to have to actually shoot you." It's not Ramirez but Coulson in his ear and Clint dry-swallows.

"Sir, you're supposed to be in deep cover so you'd better be calling me from a police barricade six blocks down while making an evil coffee run."

"Not exactly."

Clint thunks his head on the dumpster for a moment. "Sir, is your deep cover with the guys currently shooting at me?"

"That would be a more accurate assessment of my current position, yes," Coulson agrees, sounding as mild and unruffled as ever. Clint really misses having Coulson in his ear on missions, but the frat regs disallowed their continuing professional relationship in that capacity at least and he'd been more than okay with the choice at the time. Then of course, Ramirez happened. "Where's your handler?"

"Damned if I know," Clint huffs. He's going to have a serious discussion about Ramirez's career choice and continuing longevity if he ever sees the guy again. 

"Well, you're lucky the guys I'm with can't hit the broad side of a barn. However, I'm having to shoot like a storm trooper to _miss_ you and it's messing with my ego."

"How many?"

"Twelve. Ten on the ground and two on the roof opposite you."

"Shit."

"Agreed."

"Who do they think you're talking to right now?"

"They don't. I'm _finding a better angle_."

"Ah, right." Clint slumps against the dumpster. He's running on thirty six hours with no sleep and no food and he's feeling pretty exhausted and sorry for himself. It doesn't help that Coulson's going to have to watch him die which he really could have done without.

"I could-"

"Sir, don't you dare," Clint says. He doesn't think about calling Coulson _Sir_ when they're on comms, it just comes naturally. He also doesn't have to think about cutting off whatever _ideas_ Coulson has been getting. "You said twelve? They're going to notice friendly fire, especially since I stopped returning when one of them shot my bow."

"They're starting to make noises about rushing you."

"I figured."

"I have an idea."

"Am I going to like it?"

"Not in the least."

"Okay, just-" Clint doesn't get to finish his thought, because he's hit in the shoulder at that exact moment. The shot spins him around and he cracks his temple on the wall behind him, on a piece of protruding brick he hadn't noticed. Clint goes down, fighting the blackness that swamps his vision the whole way.

*

This is a good news, bad news situation.

The good news is that Clint wakes up, which he's pretty surprised about. He was expecting a back-of-the-head while he lay unconscious and useless in his own blood. The _bad_ news is that he's currently chained to a table that's bolted to the floor in a small, windowless room.

It's less than ideal.

Clint scans the room. The walls are smooth and there's a door but it sits flush with the walls, no locking mechanism or key pad in sight which means it locks from the outside. Clint's manacled with a pretty short chain to either side of the table with his arms set apart and he's perched on a chair that's also bolted to the floor. They haven't left him so much as a piece of paper to MacGyver his way out of the situation.

He's either underground or in the middle of a building which always ups the level of difficulty for escape. The manacles are something weirdly hi-tech, no key hole but a few lights that are blinking happily at him. He could probably break them or short them out somehow if he had any kind of liquid or the leverage but he doesn't really have either.

Clint shifts and then groans. Somebody must have kicked his ribs while he was down from the feel which is a dick move. His shoulder's been wrapped and the pain's a little distant rather than sharp which means they've drugged him just enough to take the edge off the bullet wound but probably do nothing for any other injuries they might be planning for him.

The door opens with a _shush_ and Coulson appears. Clint slumps further down in his chair and pastes a surly look on his face. He can't see cameras but he's assuming they're watching him somehow. Coulson's expression is concerned which tells Clint he might be wrong about that. Coulson lifts his hands and signs.

_Audio, no camera_

Clint and Coulson, over time, created their own kind of sign language. Coulson already knew how to sign properly because of his niece and Clint knew a bunch of hand signals from his circus days so their own sign language was a mix of the two. The only other person who would understood it is Natasha, and that's basically more immersion than choice.

"I'm not sure what you think you're going to get out of me, I'm not giving you dick," Clint says through his teeth.

"What makes you think we want anything other than to amuse ourselves with your slow death?"

Clint's a little hampered by his hands being separated but he does his best. _Remember our deal_.

Coulson frowns at him, frustration leaking into his expression. They'd both always thought this would go down the other way, Clint being forced to hold Coulson prisoner because Clint, of the two of them, is more often working under the radar. Coulson was forced to step in when a field agent balked six months ago at a club where there was a known cell member for a recent Hydra revival. The cell member had taken an instant shine to Coulson and instead of just getting one night's worth of information from an inebriated bad guy, Coulson had managed to fasttrack his way into the cell itself.

In any case, they'd agreed that if this ever happened, there would be no staged escapes. It was risky and even if the bad guys weren't suspicious of the motives behind the escape, they wouldn't be impressed by failure of that magnitude and might end up killing the person responsible just to prove a point. 

In short, Clint needed to get out on his own, and there could be absolutely no way for it to be traced to Coulson.

*

Clint's left alone for a few hours. When Coulson returns, he isn't alone. Before Clint can comment on that, Coulson punches him. It's a strategic hit, showy without doing too much damage but precisely targeted. It knocks Clint's porcelain implant loose and he works it the rest of the way free with his tongue and then spits it out with a spray of blood, Coulson's companion looking suitably impressed that Coulson knocked a tooth loose.

They leave again without saying anything and Clint idly prods at the empty space between his teeth and wonders if maybe that was a test, if they'd questioned why Coulson hadn't worked Clint over the first time he came into the room instead of making threats and posturing. 

_Don't warn me_ , Coulson had said when they'd been jammed into a cot together in a small town on the border of nothing. _If you ever have to hit me, don't warn me. I always think the anticipation is worse than the actual pain_.

Clint had agreed to that, idly tracing Coulson's back with his fingers, the fine sweep of his shoulder blades, the scar a bullet left behind at his left hip. 

It hadn't seemed like such a big deal at the time.

*

"Either someone takes me for a piss or this room is going to get funky," Clint says to the empty space. He rattles his cuffed wrists ineffectively. He knows he needs to figure a way out of the place and hopefully getting the lay of the land will help. He's no escape artist, not like Natasha, but he's managed to eel his way free of more than a few scrapes and this can't be any different.

If he sits on his hands too long Coulson's going to take matters into his own and that will probably get them both killed.

Instead of Coulson, a young guy appears. He's holding a taser and smirking like he's really jazzed he has the opportunity to use it. "Hey now, no need for-" Clint only manages before the guy touches the taser to the meat of Clint's bicep and he jerks so hard he's pretty sure he breaks one of his manacled wrists before he passes out.

*

Clint wakes up in the same position, but he's no longer in his black SHIELD pants and t-shirt but instead in loose tracksuit bottoms and a white undershirt. The need to piss is gone and Clint groans and lowers his head to the table.

His wrist is tender, but thankfully not broken. He rotates it carefully, flexing his fingers. There's a quiet thump and scrape from outside and then his door is pushed open and Natasha is standing on the other side, the same expression on her face that she gets when he's late meeting her for a movie.

"I had other stuff to do today, you know," she says primly, sweeping into the room and checking him briskly for injuries. She tutts at the bullet wound, prods at his temple where he smacked it on the wall and he hisses and pulls away from her non-gentle fingers.

"How'd you find me?" Clint asks as she pulls a slim black device from a pocket and touches it to his manacles which spring open.

"Encoded message from an interested party," Natasha says, offers him a gentle smile and then with her hands says, _Coulson Okay_.

Natasha takes him on a circuitous route on the way out of the complex they're in. Clint knows it's not the quickest way, but he's grateful when they have to step over a bunch of unconscious, tethered bad guys, Coulson clearly breathing and whole on top of the pile. Clint makes a show of a juvenile kick at Coulson's feet and there's the slightest twitch of Coulson's mouth in response, no other sign that he's awake and aware.

*

It's another two months, bullet wound and grazed temple well and truly healed before Clint opens the door to the sounds of someone fussing around in the kitchen. He knows who it is before he reaches the space, can hear the off-key singing and sounds of frying.

Phil always likes a fry-up when he's home from being away.

Phil is always _Phil_ in their space.

Clint hesitates in the doorway, knows _Phil_ knows he's there and is choosing to keep grooving to his own mental radio, flipping eggs because Clint likes over easy and Phil's gotten used to them being that way even though he prefers sunny-side. Finally he tosses a glance over his shoulder.

"You going to hover or are you going to eat?"

"They're sending me to watch over Doctor Selvig at the new facility," Clint says. SHIELD has impeccably bad timing when it comes to missions. He hadn't really minded being sent on babysitting duty because he hadn't known Phil would be back.

"How long you got?" Phil asks, sliding eggs onto two plates where bacon is already curved and waiting.

"Enough to pack."

"How long you there?"

"They were... unspecific," Clint says with a frown.

Phil sighs, then abandons the plates so he can cross the kitchen and loop arms around Clint's neck, rub a thumb along to tendon that's forever tense. "I'll see if I can find a reason to be there."

Clint grins. "Abusing your power?"

"What else is it for?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Standard Operating Procedure: Being Taken Prisoner By Your Significant Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2811794) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




End file.
